All that's past (Mare, set by G. Bachlund, L. Berkeley, F. Bontoft, D. Elwyn-Edwards, G. Garrett, I. Gurney, A. Roper) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the brier's boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are--
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.
Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.

Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden
By Eve's nightingales;
We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.

First published in Thrush, Jan. 1910

Authorship

Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

Gary Bachlund

Sir Lennox Berkeley (1903-1989)

Songs of the Half-Light

Frederic Bontoft

Dilys Elwyn-Edwards, née Roberts

Gaynor D. Garrett

Three Poems of Walter de la Mare

Ivor Gurney (1890-1937)

Antony Roper

Date added to the website: 2007-05-11.

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